"It's exciting stuff that he's done, and the board is totally in support and we want to see his vision of our district with him as the leader moving forward," McCoy said.

Padalino started with the district in early 2012, upon the retirement of Superintendent Gerard Gretzinger, who salary at the time was $203,000 per year.

Padalino, who formerly was superintendent of the Watervliet school district in Albany County, said it is important to complete projects that have been started in the past year.

"I'm very happy that the board has extended my contract for a year because I think the important thing for me right now is to see through these changes that we're putting in place," he said Wednesday night. "Just in some of the comments (from the public) here tonight, there's a lot of misunderstanding, there's a lot of misinformation, there's a lot of disbelief in the things that we're saying could happen, so I want to be here to see this thing through."